The ‘disobedient gadabout'

She had prayed for almost 20 years without feeling any positive results from it.

But once Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada started reaping the fruits of prayer, she went on to teach the world about it, she was eventually proclaimed St. Teresa of Jesus – also known as St. Teresa of Avila, after the place where she was born and lived. Later, she would be declared a doctor of the Catholic church, the first woman in history to be given the honors, in recognition of her contributions towards understanding our faith.

She had disturbed the raucous order of things when she first entered the convent, opting to work for a simple life of prayer when the cloisters had been invaded by vanity and worldliness. She went on to reform the Carmelite order and for that she was misunderstood, at one point called a ‘disobedient gadabout' by the Papal Nuncio in Spain; her visions dismissed as coming from the devil, and even her friends deserted her. Yet Teresa persisted, and went on to found the Discalced Carmelite order that today stands as a beacon of hope and prayer to a restless mankind.

Tomorrow, March 28, the Catholic world will open the year long celebrations marking Teresa's 5th centenary that will be held on the same date next year. A national commission has been created to oversee the Philippine celebrations.

In Bacolod, the celebrations are spearheaded by the Carmelites and their seculars, the present-day sons and daughters of Teresa. These will center in the Carmel of St. Joseph in Mandalagan where a birthday mass is scheduled at 7 a.m., after which a permanent exhibit on her life and times will be opened for a year-long show.

Often confused with St. Therese of Lisieux, another Carmelite and another woman doctor of the church, Teresa of Avila came way, way ahead , almost 400 years ahead in fact. Therese was a French nun who astounded the world with her doctrine of spiritual childhood, outlined in her autobiography The Story of a Soul; Teresa taught the world prayer by way of her books, one of which is The Interior Castle.

Therese taught the world power in powerlessness and the importance of love; Teresa taught us the power of prayer and the role of love in it.

Indeed, St. Teresa's enduring legacy to the world are her teachings on prayer which she has written down from her extraordinary experiences. As part of the centenary celebrations, these teachings on prayers have been encapsulized in an illustrated full color card released by the Association of Monasteries of Discalced Carmelite Nuns in the Philippines entitled “St Teresa of Jesus explains the four degrees of prayer.” These are not easy concepts to learn admittedly, but they can all be summed up by the saint's definition of prayer as “nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”

While these teachings on prayers are the primary reasons why she is hailed as a doctor of the Church, it is as the “disobedient gadabout” that makes Teresa engaging and interesting in the present times, when standing up for one's values and beliefs has become a rare habit, when people would rather belong than be labeled an oddball for what is right, when it is subversive to upset the neat order of things.

Indeed, Teresa in her time had to endure ridicule and condemnation, many of which came from her fellow religious. Her work was known to have inspired riots in towns, and she had to oftentimes enter these towns under the cover of darkness as existing religious orders went up in her arms against her campaign to build more convents.

It wasn't a bed of roses for this friend of Jesus, but come to think of it, she in fact walked the very path He had trod. Wasn't He, after all, the first subversive, who turned things on their head when he came to preach the kingdom of God? It isn't incidental, I'm sure, that as we begin to celebrate Teresa's life, we are also heading towards the culmination of Lent, when The First Subversive is going to reap the scorn of the world and get crucified to save us all.*

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